Among all the Wise Men of the Nations, There is None Like You
161. Rabbi Elazar said, It is written: “Who would not fear You, O King of the nations? What sort of praise is this? Rabbi Shimon replied: “Elazar my son, this verse has been said in many places, but one should not understand literally the meaning of the verse: For among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is none like You.” This provides an excuse for the evil intentions of sinners, of those who think that the Creator is not aware of their dark thoughts, doubts, and intents. Because of this, their folly should be explained. A philosopher of a remote nation approached me, and said, “You claim that your Creator governs the entire heavens, and all the heavenly hosts are not able to attain Him, nor do they know His place. However, this verse does not add a lot to His greatness, as it is written, ‘as among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is none like You.’ What kind of a comparison is this, with a human being who is nothing?”
This is similar to what is written about sinners in Psalms: “They say: ‘How does God know? And is there knowledge in the Most High? Behold, such are the wicked; and they that are always at ease increase riches.’” That is exactly what the philosopher said. He was one of the greatest sages among the nations of the world. He came to Rabbi Shimon to discredit Israel’s wisdom and work in absolute faith for the sake of the Creator, which ought to be in greater wholeness, perfection, and integrity. This is because a thought cannot grasp Him.
This sage was one of the philosophers who asserted that the main thing in work for the Creator is not to serve, but to attain Him, because according to their understanding, they attain Him. He came to ridicule Israel’s approach; hence, he said: “The Creator is above all human wisdom, and by this He rules. He commanded you to work for Him, be faithful, irreproachable, and have no doubts in Him, because the human mind cannot grasp Him. Even the heavenly hosts, His legions, and angels are unable to attain Him, as it is written of those who say: ‘Blessed be the Creator in His place,’ for they do not know ‘His place’.”
The phrase, “as among all the wise men of the nations, there is none like You” does not indicate the Creator’s greatness. Indeed, if this prophetic expression is used to exalt the God of Israel and show that He is greater than the god that the wise men of the nations attain in their human mind, then, naturally, this does not add much to the Creator’s glory, for He is compared with insignificant and transient forces. On the contrary, this statement shows disdain for the Creator when you compare Him with the wise men of the nations of the world, with mortal and limited creatures.” Those were the words that the scholar who represented the wisdom of the nations uttered before Rabbi Shimon.
Naturally, The Zohar does not mean some gentile sage who paid a visit to Rabbi Shimon. Just like all the other names of places and characters mentioned in the Torah, Talmud, and Kabbalah, the names of places, animals, people, and actions described in The Zohar speak only about the spiritual world, the Creator’s actions, and how a person can achieve the purpose of creation. In no way does the book describe events in our world!
Therefore, the ‘wise man of the nations of the world’ symbolizes man’s inner egoistical property to research and know all instead of having faith above reason, as the Torah demands. This human property, which is called a “sage of the nations of the world,” the egoistical mind is constantly arguing with man’s spiritual, altruistic property called “Israel” or the aspiration to the Creator. This way, by arguing with it, man builds himself and grows.
162. Furthermore, you claim, as your Torah says, that “There arose not a prophet since in Israel like Moshe” (Devarim 34:10). There is none in Israel, but there is one among the nations of the world. So I claim the same: there is none like You among all the wise men of the nations, but among the wise men of Israel there is! However, a Creator who has an equal among the wise men of Israel cannot be all-powerful. Look closely into my words, and you shall see that I am right.
Here the philosopher (man’s inner egoistical voice) spoke wisely. He understood that if he spoke straightforwardly, he would hear precise answers to his questions. It is written: “Among all the wise men of the nations, there is none like You.” This means that no one can attain You. The words, “there is none like You” imply that it is impossible to become equal to the Creator and attain Him, His level.
However, since the wise men of the nations (human mind) take pride in their attainment of the Creator (understand His intentions and actions), they consider themselves similar to Him, for an attainment means similarity of properties with the attained level. Hence, it is said to be a lie and there is none like Him because they do not attain the Creator, but only delude themselves about it.
The (inner) philosopher (within a person) understood that, therefore he started (leading man astray, from the path of faith, which surpasses and defies the mind) with a totally different question: “If it is particularly said that no one is equal to the Creator among the wise men of the nations, does this mean that among the sages of Israel there are people who can attain Him?” For otherwise, why would it be necessary to specify that there is none like Him among the wise men of the nations.
However, in that case, He cannot be the Supreme Ruler if He is similar to you! How can you say that the God of Israel cannot be attained by the mind and that He governs all? You say this because you have faith in His greatness, but there are people among your sages who are like Him, meaning those who attain Him.
163. Rabbi Shimon said to him, “You have said correctly that among the wise men of Israel there are people who are equal to the Creator, because who raises the dead and brings them back to life if not the Creator Himself? Yet Eliyahu and Elisha came and raised the dead back to life! Who causes rain to fall if not the Creator? Yet Eliyahu came and prevented rain, then caused it to fall through his prayer. Who made the heavens and the earth if not the Creator Himself? Yet Abraham came and heavens and earth were revived for his sake.”
Rabbi Shimon replies that the wise man (within a person) speaks the truth when he asserts that among the sages of Israel there are people who are equal to the Creator. However, this does not revoke the simple faith in the Creator’s inscrutability to the human mind. Of course, He is the master and ruler of all heavens. He is so much higher that even the supernal angels cannot attain Him and do not know His place.
Yet the Torah and Commandments were given to us just because by using them, observing Commandments (making a Zivug of a screen with the Light) and studying the Torah (receiving the Light) for the sake of the Creator, we, Israel (those who aspire to the Creator) would be able to merge with Him completely (with our properties). His Light should enter into us to such an extent that we would be able to carry out the same actions as the Creator himself: resurrect the dead (correct egoism), make rains (OhrHassadim) fall, and revive heavens and earth (fill all the Partzufim in all the worlds with the Light of our actions).
In this we are just like Him, as it is said: “I will know You by Your deeds (by feeling them within myself).” However, we only attain it all thanks to absolute and devoted faith (the property of Bina), which in no way inspires us to attain the Creator with our mind (verify and then act), as in the case of the wise men of the nations (our egoism). Our egoism consists of a Partzuf called a “wise man of the nations,” its Rosh (head) designating knowledge and desire to know all and its Guf (body) being the will to receive pleasure.
The philosopher argues that if Israel can do what the Creator does, then Israel attains Him. This is correct because if a person can act like the Creator, then, to the extent of his actions, he attains and feels Him. It is said: “I will know You by Your deeds.” If a person acts like the Creator, then in his own actions he understands the Creator’s similar actions and thereby feels Him. Yet first a person advances “by faith above reason” and as a result he attains the Creator’s properties and subsequently becomes like Him in his actions.
164. Rabbi Shimon continued: “Who governs the sun if not the Creator? Yet Yehoshua comes and stops it. The Creator issues His decree, yet Moshe issues another decree, and it becomes fulfilled. The Creator wishes to impose a penalty, while the righteous of Israel cancel His verdict. Even more so, He has commanded us to follow His paths and to be like Him in every way.” The philosopher then became Israel and went to live in the village of Shachalayim. And they called him Yosi HaKatan (Humble Yosi). He studied the Torah and joined the wise and pious men of that village.
The problem is that if a person does everything only to the extent of his faith, then he is left with no chance to attain the Creator because an attainment comes as a result of applying the mind. However, the moment he starts using his mind, he immediately diminishes his faith. How can faith and reason be reconciled?
It is correct that those who wish to approach the Creator (called Israel) diminish their simple devoted faith, but they do this only because He commands them to act this way in order to attain His actions and subsequently become like Him, as it is said in the Torah: “Follow His paths.” By this, they observe His Commandments. The philosopher was so struck by this truth that he became “Israel” and started observing the Torah and Commandments.
He was amazed when he found out that Israel’s actions, i.e., their attainments of the spiritual worlds do not diminish their faith above reason because all of their actions and revelations stem from and are based on faith. Israel attains the Creator because He commands them to do so, and not because they desire this with their egoism.
165. Now the time has come to have a closer look at this verse. It is written that all the nations are as nothing before Him. Yet how does it exalt Him? Hence, it is written: “Who sees the King of the nations?” Yet, is the King of the nations not the King of Israel? The Creator wishes to elevate Israel; therefore, He is always called the King of Israel. The other nations of the world say that they have another King up in the heavens, because it seems to them that He governs over them alone, and not over us.
The nations of the world are certain that their Supernal King is not the King of Israel. They believe that the King who sits in heavens and governs them is only their King and that the King of Israel has no power over them. It seems to man’s egoism that some other (not altruistic) system of governance rules over it. Egoism fails to realize that the Creator made it exactly this way to achieve His goal: with the help of egoism to bring man to altruism, from “for one’s self” to “for the Creator.”
166. It is written: “Who would not fear You, O King of the nations?” (Yirmiyahu 10:7), which means that their Supernal King is there to intimidate and persecute them, and do with them as He wishes. Hence, He should be feared. All fear Him above and below. It is written that among all the wise men (the angels that rule over these nations) of the nations in their Kingdoms (above) there is none like You. There are 4 Kingdoms above that rule over all the nations according to the Creator’s will. Yet there is no one who can do something without His personal instruction. The wise men of the nations are the forces that rule from above, and all wisdom of the nations comes from those rulers.
These lines speak about a bride in exile who prepares herself for her future final correction. The power of the nations of the world (within every one of us) consists in conquering us (the altruistic desires for the Creator) and putting us under their power (serving only the body). They want to drive us away from under the Creator’s rule and let other desires called the nations of the world dominate over us. Our egoistical desires called the nations of the world do that by their power (tempting us with various pleasures) and wisdom (appealing to our common sense and reason).
The actions they make within us (spiritual aspirations) stem from the system of the impure forces and their impure (egoistical) angels (our inner egoistical forces), which give power and reason to the nations of the world. With the help of their wisdom they (our egoistical desires) lead us (the sons of Israel; only those who aspire to the Creator) to various doubts and desires to understand the Creator, His ways, and thoughts without any fear and reverence before His greatness and power.
As a result of these doubts we move away from the Creator and His supernal Light, which passes on to them (our egoistical desires). It is written: “Tzur (the capital of the impure forces) is built on the ruins of Jerusalem (the capital of the pure forces).” Thus, they acquire strength to persecute and humiliate Israel, force them to submit to their will (suppress the only true path to the spiritual – faith above and in defiance of reason – with their persuasions and proof of their “real” rightfulness). As it was already explained in The Introduction to The Zohar (pp. 69 to 71), our inner spiritual enslavement leads to our external corporeal enslavement, persecution and humiliation by the nations of the world.
This is the secret of the 4 Kingdoms that rule over us in our 4 (spiritual and therefore physical) exiles, which correspond to the SefirotH-B-ZA-M that are symbolized by Nebuchadnezzar, as it is written: “As for that image, its head was of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of brass, its legs of iron, its feet part of iron and part of clay” (Daniel 2:32).
When this idol rules over us, the nations of the world scoff at us claiming that they have a King of their own. However, such was the Creator’s plan, as it is said: “God has so made it, that men should fear before Him” (Ecclesiastes 3:14) because the sensation of the Creator called Shechina is also called fear before Him. Meanwhile, since we do not feel and how great and almighty the Creator is, we are unworthy of fearing Him and only fear the King of the nations of the world.
This indicates that we have no other way to merge with the Creator completely and forever other than with the help of great fear before His greatness by taking on ourselves His Torah and His desires (Commandments) in devoted and complete faith without doubting His properties.
Only then can we eternally merge with Him in absolute union, and the Creator pours all the good things for which He created us. He conceived this in the beginning of the creation and this became the cause of the entire creation. Such a state is referred to as the complete and final deliverance and correction.
However, before the attainment of such an exalted spiritual state this is how the prophet describes those who aspire to the Creator: “You have sown much, and brought in little, you eat, but you have not enough, you drink, but you are not filled with drink” (Haggai 1:6). This is because in all of our actions (of those how aspire to the spiritual) the impure force (egoism) constantly takes the Light for itself. This occurs because we have doubts with regard to faith in the Creator, which the impure force grows within us.
Yet, the purpose of this punishment is not to grieve us! Everything happens according to the Creator’s plan and serves only for our advancement toward correction. Therefore, as long as a person remains in a state when he only can listen to the egoistical arguments, the Creator gradually develops us by means of these forces. With their help, we are gradually becoming fit to feel fear before the Creator, due to many trials and sufferings that our exile (from the spiritual) sends us.
In the end we become worthy of receiving complete devoted faith and fear before His greatness. It is written about this state: “He has remembered His mercy and His faithfulness toward the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God” (Tehilim 98:3).
This is because at the end of days the Creator will remember us in His mercy and will give us powers to receive complete unshakable faith in Him. As a result of this, Jerusalem (the capital of altruism) will be rebuilt on the ruins of Tzur (the capital of egoism) because all the Light, of which Malchut of the impure force was robbing us during our exile (from the spiritual world), will return to us after we acquire complete faith and will shine with all its might.
All the vain creatures (manifestations of egoism) on the earth will then see with their own eyes how our Creator saves (corrects) them. All the nations of the world (within us) will see that they have always kept this Light to return it to us at the appropriate time. Everyone will see that “one man had power over another to his hurt!” (Ecclesiastes 8:9).
The heaviness of our slavery and the impure force’s power over us (holiness) harms only the impure force because it compels us to attain complete and unshakable faith in the Creator as soon as we can! The prophet speaks about this time, “Who would not fear You, O King of the nations?” After it has been revealed that He is the King of the nations who persecutes and dominates over those nations [it previously seemed to them (our egoistical intentions) that they (our egoistical intentions) persecuted us], it is now perceived as the opposite. They just blindly executed the Creator’s will as our servants or slaves in order to bring us to perfection.
It seemed to us that they were beating us. Now it turns out that they were beating themselves because thanks to these blows (suffering from unrealized egoistical desires and constant frustration) they accelerated our deliverance and attainment of perfection (our realization of the need to choose the path of faith above reason). Thisway, theyhastenedtheirownend (correction).
It seemed to us (our mind) that they rebelled against the Creator (argued that the Creator is not the source of all reality) and (allegedly) did what they wanted to humiliate us and satiate their base egoistical desires. It appeared that there is no (supernal) judge and no law (the advancement of the creation toward its goal), but now it is revealed that they have always entirely fulfilled the Creator’s will: to bring us (all of our desires, i.e., themselves) to perfection.
Everyone in the world, whether he wants it or not, always entirely fulfills the Creator’s will. Why then is he not called the Creator’s servant? This is because he works unconsciously, not of his own will. To make a person fulfill His will, the Creator gives him a desire to receive some pleasure. This compels him to carry out an action, but he does so as a slave of his desire; not as someone who fulfills the Creator’s will.
As a case in point, it is written in the article entitled “The Structure of the Universe” that the Creator gives a person a desire to make money. He forces him to open a restaurant and to carry out altruistic actions as a slave of his egoistical desire.
In other words, to compel us to do what we should do, the Creator created within us an egoistical desire to receive pleasure and obliges us to do what He wants by enabling us to see delight in the actions and objects on which He wants us to work. Therefore, we are living in constant chase of pleasures; whereas actually we are constantly and unconsciously fulfilling the Creator’s will. This resembles a situation in which children were given many toys to make them play, but while playing games, at the same time they carry out some important work.
The entire world is fulfilling the Creator’s will, but the purpose of our development is to do that consciously. We have to attain and realize His will; ascend so high that we will want to fulfill it by ourselves. Not as we do it now, unconsciously and under compulsion, but of our own free will. We should achieve a state when our desires fully coincide with those of the Creator, which means that we completely and consciously merge with Him.
Thus, it becomes clear that the King of the nations is the Creator who rules over them and compels them to fulfill all of His desires, the way a King acts with his slaves. Now all the nations of the world feel fear before the Creator. The phrase, “all the nations of the world” alludes to the angels that rule over the nations, such as Afriron, Kastimon, Aza, Azael, and others from which the wise men of the nations (our egoism and mind) receive their wisdom, and with the help of which, they oppress Israel (our altruistic desires).
IN THEIR KINGDOMS refers to the 4 existing Kingdoms that rule over 70 nations of the world (ZON = 7 Sefirot, each of which has 10 sub-Sefirot: in all 70 Sefirot) and over us (altruistic aspirations) in our 4 exiles that correspond to the impure SefirotH-B-ZA-M (described as Nebuchadnezzar). As it is written by the prophet: “As for that image, its head was of fine gold (the 1st Kingdom), its breast and its arms of silver (the 2nd Kingdom), its belly and its thighs of brass (the 3rd Kingdom), its legs of iron, its feet part of iron and part of clay (the 4th Kingdom)” (Daniel 2:32).
None of them can make even a small action of their own; they submit only to Your will. However, this will be revealed only at the end of the creation and all will know that our misfortunes and sufferings that had power to separate us from the Creator were nothing but loyal executors of the Creator’s aspiration to draw us nearer to Him. Moreover, these cruel forces did nothing else but obey His orders.
Everything was taking place with the sole purpose of bringing us to a state when we can receive all the perfection and infinite goodness that He initially intended to bestow upon us in His plan of the creation. Hence, as the prophet said: “Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken in pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors; and the wind carried them away, so that no place was found for them; and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth” (Daniel 2:35).
Absolute faith is called the “unbreakable stone.” After a person acquires absolute faith, the impure force (his egoistical desires and thoughts) disappears as though it had never existed. All the vain creatures (reason, logic, philosophy, and common sense) that populated the earth see the Creator’s redemption, as the prophet said: “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:9).
167. Yet among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, I found in the ancient books that even though the heavenly hosts and legions obeyed orders and each one received the precise instructions to be carried out, but who can do it better than You? Because You excel over them all in Your qualities and in Your deeds. Hence, it is written: “There is none like You.”
The Creator Himself carries out all the creation’s actions with His Light and leads them to the chosen goal. Man’s sole task is to realize the creation and governance, to agree whole-heartedly with all the Creator’s actions, and to take an active part in the process of the spiritual creation.
168. Rabbi Shimon told his companions: “This wedding should be for all of you and each of you should bring a gift (his own part in common Malchut) to the bride.” He said to Rabbi Elazar his son: “Present the bride with a gift because on the following day Zeir Anpin will look at her, when he enters under the bridal canopy at the sound of the songs and praises of the Sons of the Bride’s Mirth who stand before Him.